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Feds Reject Eolas Browser Plug-In Patent
theodp writes "The USPTO has issued a preliminary decision invalidating Eolas' claim to Web browser technology central to a case against Microsoft, which could save the software giant more than half a billion dollars in damages. If upheld, this also means Microsoft will not be required to make changes that would have crippled IE's ability to work with plug-ins like QuickTime and Flash. Eolas has 60 days to respond to the decision. The USPTO has only invalidated 151 patents out of nearly 4 million patents awarded since 1988."
Remember back when this story first broke, and Microsoft was set to add pop-up confirmation to IE in order to get around the EOLAS issue? That was supposed to happen earlier this year, but there was an update posted at the end of January for those of you who might have missed it.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
MoFscker
We don't have to implement a hokey work around to get around the letter of the ruling. Anyone running Flash, Real Media Player or Windows Media Player would have had to update every page with these plug ins. Not bad if you have a handful, but any large site operator would need to spend a LOT of time to find/update/test each one... A huge amount of unproductive effort.
This Info World article explains that "The patent office's decision, issued Feb. 25, may be good news for Microsoft, but it is common for claims to be rejected at this stage of patent review" ... so in other words we shouldn't count our chickens before they hatch.
It's called experience. If a guy breaks into my house 3 times and I catch him, then I get broke into again with the same MO, but I don't catch him red handed this time, I'd strongly suspect it was the same guy. Even if I don't have "solid" proof.
And as the judge enformed me when I went in for jury duty, circumstantial evidence IS legally admissable evidence.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
That's not surprising. They're not issued arbitrarily. The fact that it's issued at all means there wasn't prior art to prevent issue.
Actually just recently that patent was rejected, too.
Its not the courts position to say if the patent is valid or invalid, its the courts position to validate the lawsuit. This is what they did, they looked at the evidence on both sides and ruled that under the circumstances at the time, MS was in the wrong. The USPTO invalidated the patent which _should_ invalidate the courts ruling, because the circumstance at the time was invalid. This post has far too many valid or invalid uses of the 'valid' family of words.
...apply for a patent on toilet seats. I'm sure it has a good chance at slipping through the cracks. Then I can sue all the end users and manufacturers. Maybe even the technicians(plumbers, construction contracters).
I think that means that the electronic system doesn't accept it. You will have to send them in on plain papaer.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Now isn't this interesting.. Microsoft's attorneys couldn't invalidate the patent, but the W3C and its supporters seemingly came up with the prior art to invalidate the patent on their re-exam petition.
The current defendants against Acacia's DMT patent (which covers the process of downloading audio/video from a web server) will most likely get a non-infringing verdict, since it's faster and cheaper than trying to invalidate the patent in their current litigation.
When this happens, it means that the patent doesn't apply to the internet. Cable companies would be left to deal with the DMT patent, and would most likely need to file a re-exam of their own and provide prior art to the USPTO to invalidate the DMT patent.
FightThePatent.com provides free prior art found by volunteer searchers to defense patent attorneys.
Patent abuse cases in the audio/video realm (Acacia, SightSound, USA Video) are being tracked on the website.
------ Fight The Patent! website
This update was big news for the web design community, for other reasons. The developer's edition of IE6 (which was a modified version that contained the pop-up) revealed that Windows was able to run multiple Internet Explorer versions simultaneously by merely adding a blank text file!.
For the longest time, people thought it was impossible to run multiple versions of IE on the same machine to do testing on various browsers. It was a huge pain, and it also meant that developers were forced to use the IE version that came with the OS and not downgrade, while Netscape 4.xx to Mozilla installed fine. But now, it's possible to run IE3, IE4, IE5.01, IE5.5 SP2 and IE6 side-by-side (screenshot).
I can't believe that out of 4 million patents, only 151 of them were been invalidated since 1988. Scary
That's not what the story meant (but it was ambiguously worded). The report related only to patents invalidated by the Patent Office's re-examination process. That is a relatively new procedure. Many patent challenges are made in court, and those were not being counted. One of the factors dissuading would-be challengers from using the relatively new PTO patent re-examination process is that it has been perceived as not close enough to fairly balanced, and too likely to uphold the patent. Many challengers have preferred for that reason to reserve their patent challenges for federal court.
-wb-
There is a common misconception that patents == inventions which simply isn't the case. You patent a method for doing something AND that something doesn't even have to be truly useful to anyone (hard to prove utility) or work.
:)
As such it doesn't really surprise me. Heck there are multiple patents for ketchup dispensers
Funny thing, you can't sue the federal government, at least as a private citizen. I don't know if states are allowed to. You could sue someone in the federal government, though. That's why you usually have lawsuits against John Ashcroft, instead of the Department of Justice. The government is free to sue you, though. Hence all those cases which are United States v. .
Company A invents something, then ships code that embodies that invention for a few years.
Company B then tries to patent the same invention. Because Company A never patented its invention, it's unlikely that Company A's prior art will be found when the Patent Office searches for prior art on Company B's patent application.
(and yes, I know that only individuals can patent things, and not companies)